The Beginning

July 27th 2011,

I had my consultation with the OMNI Behavioral Health Group yesterday. I met with a Dietician/Nutritionist and then a Therapist. After talking with them both for about an hour each, they told me what I had already expected to hear: I needed to get help and get ahold of this eating disorder (which has yet to be defined) before it gets any worse.

It was interesting to hear that my weight is actually not unhealthy, I fall right in the normal range for a person of my stature (which I found out I have a "small" body frame), age, height, gender, etc. But they also calculated what the normal body weight would be for someone who exercises as much as I do, and according to that calculation, I'm about 15 pounds underweight. I don't know yet what that means for me, I'm hoping that I won't be forced to gain 15 pounds, but we'll see.

Another interesting thing that the Dietician had me do was to point out an outline of the body I thought mine looked most like, there was a series of about 8 different outlines, the first being really thin and the following ones grew in size until you reached the last one which looked somewhat like the Michelin man. So I picked about the 5th one to describe what I thought I looked like. Then she asked me to pick the one I wanted to look like, so I picked the second one.

Interestingly enough, the one that I said I wanted to look like was the one that I actually do look like, based on weight/stature calculations (she was doing all sorts of calculations with her calculator, so apparently there's a science to this!). And whaddya know, the one I said that I thought I currently looked like would be someone that weighs about 30 pounds more than I do.

This didn't really surprise me, after losing so much weight in what I think was a relatively short amount of time and not really working on the 'inside' transformation along the way, I am not surprised that I think I'm bigger than I really am. Not only that, I also have a ridiculous amount of excess skin that just hangs around, which really distorts what my body actually looks like in my opinion. I see all that skin hanging there, and even though I know it's just skin, I refer to it and think of it as fat. I think that's why I keep exercising as much as I can, to try and get rid of it, because I hate it so much. But I also understand that no amount of exercise can take care of extra skin. What a conundrum!

Anyways, the real update here is that I am officially starting treatment on Tuesday. The plan right now is for me to start off with a week of outpatient hospitalization treatment-the closest thing that they have to hospitalization. I will go to this center every day for a week (no weekends) from 8am to 6pm. I will have to shop for, prepare and eat 3 meals a day and 3 snacks a day.

That's going to be a challenge: I've eaten 8 actual meals total since the beginning of the month. And I can't remember the last time I ate more than one actual meal in a day. Along with preparing/learning how to eat food again, I will also have lots of group therapy (stuff like body image, food & feelings, stress management, etc) and one-on-one meetings with the therapist and nutritionist.

You know me, one of my first concerns was whether or not I'd be able to get exercise during all of this. My question was: "Is there any kind of physical activity involved in the program?" "NO." Then I asked if I'd be able to exercise outside of the program still; that question has yet to be answered. I just don't think you can teach people to live a healthy lifestyle without allowing them the physical activity they enjoy!

So, that's the update. Thankfully, before any of this starts next week-the husband and I are going up to South Dakota for a mini-vacation...so hopefully I'll enjoy it to the fullest before all this hard work begins.